As Jon was kind enough to note in his show Monday night, I am very much opposed to hate and intolerance, in any form, and I have frequently spoken out against prejudice. Despite what my tired and mangled words may have implied, they were never intended to suggest any sort of narrow-mindedness and should never have been made.

* Could the enthusiasm gap swallow up Harry Reid? A new CNN poll finds Sharron Angle up 42-40 among likely voters, with overwhelming Tea Party support, but among registered voters, Reid is up eleven.

* More good commentary on my post about the widespread Dem ignorance of the scale of this Congress' accomplishments. Matt Yglesias points out that the "incumbents responsible for a lot of this sweeping change to come seem almost embarrassed to talk about it at times."

* Ben Smith notes that the real story behind the Chamber-Think Progress dust-up is that the campaign finance system is suddenly close to collapse.

...................

And it all can be laid at the doorstep of one man, who should have know better.

Justice Anthony Kennedy should be ashamed of himself, and step down from the Supreme Court. I had hoped that he would not allow himself to become a rubber stamp for the Gang Of Four Right Wing Activists, but clearly he has become their captive.

Everytime the democrats bring up Sharon Angle and Christine O'Donnell, people should just respond with the Congressional Black Caucus scholarship fund - and ask whether Guam is about to capsize - like a democratic congressman said it was.

The democrats have a long, long list of crackpots- many STILL in office.

But the democrats just continue to carry-on like all their elected officials are not complete nuts. They are.

NOW we have Krystal Ball - complete with racy pictures on the internet.......

OH I love it - Let's see if this gets as much play as a few witchcraft comments.

Since the only reason this link was posted, I am sure, was to point out some mistake that the poster would like to assign to the Obama administration, it should be noted that the witness was excluded because his identity was discovered as a result of the torture conducted by the Cheney-Bush administration.

The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent reports that the Chamber of Commerce has issued yet another response to our story – at least the fifth different statement it has offered since we first reported yesterday morning on their foreign sources of funding. The Chamber’s latest effort is to engage in personal name-calling, referring to ThinkProgress as “a George Soros-funded, anti-business blog” that is “deceitful.” This smoke-and-mirrors response serves to obfuscate the basic facts which ThinkProgress revealed:

1) The Chamber acknowledges that it receives foreign sources of funding.
2) The foreign funds go directly into the Chamber’s general 501(c)(6) entity.
3) At least $300,000 has been channeled from foreign companies in India and Bahrain to the account.
4) The foreign sources include foreign state-owned companies, including the State Bank of India and the Bahrain Petroleum Company.
5) The Chamber’s 501(c)(6) entity is used to launch an unprecedented $75 million partisan attack ad campaign against Democrats.

Nothing the Chamber has said in response to our story refutes those basic set of facts.

And finally, Fox News' "Fox & Friends" told viewers this morning that the city of Los Angeles was ordering 10,000 jetpacks at a cost of $100,000 each. That, of course, wasn't even close to being true. "We certainly haven't bought any jetpacks," police chief Charlie Beck told the L.A. Times. "We haven't bought [squad] cars for two years." So, where'd did Fox News hear about this? The story apparently originated with the Weekly World News, a supermarket tabloid.

"More good commentary on my post about the widespread Dem ignorance of the scale of this Congress' accomplishments."

Greg, I'm glad you've drawn attention to this issue.

If nothing else, I think it's one of the great ironies of this 2010 campaign -- that a Congress that has done so much to actually help the people and change the direction of this nation is facing an, perhaps, historic defeat (in large part because their own base still believes that they haven't gotten anything done).

I know there are many theories about why that may be. But, they don't diminish the arguably perverse irony of it all.

@Prag: "Playing with fire like this is no way to prove a point... We are intentionally tying our hands behind our backs and running an unnecessarily high risk of acquittal in a case involving a war criminal.

"Civilian trials have a vital place in our counterterrorism strategy ... Still, it is no denigration of civilian prosecutions to point out that in a military commission — the procedure Congress has designed and reaffirmed for war-crimes trials of enemy combatants — there would be fewer hurdles to placing the most important evidence before the tribunal.

"... This shouldn’t be about scoring points. It should be about maximizing the chance of convicting a terrorist with American blood on his hands."

Looks like filmnoia is what we call a "traditional" Democrat---in the tradition of Robert Byrd, Al Gore Sr., Lester Maddox, Orval Faubus, Bull Connor, George Wallace, J. William Fulbright, et al. He pines for the days of the antebellum South. After the Civil Rights Act passed, he didn't get the Democratic memo that said stop discriminating and start pandering---the welfare state will take the place of outright discrimination. But I like a fellow who comes right out and speaks his mind, even if he's so obviously a dork.

The Republicans were the ones who screamed like banshees, when President Obama demanded that BP set aside a recovery fund of twenty billion for the people of the Gulf.

Remember when they were demanding that President Obama take his boot off of BP's throat, and Quitter Palin twittered that it was extortion.

That is the same Quitter Palin who had extracted an additional five billion in revenues from the oil industry, even though her state was already running a budget surplus, and receiving five time the amounts back from Washington, that it was sending there.

What did Quitter Palin do what the extra five billion in oil revenue taxes that she pushed through. She mailed out vote buying checks to all Alaskans, even thought they never have had to pay any state income taxes.

Count on the Republicans to defend the principle of "one dollar, one vote".

Posted by: ifthethunderdontgetya | October 6, 2010 5:14 PM

Count on the Democrats to defend the principles of "one cemetary plot, one vote", "one smoke, one vote", "one slug, one vote", "one toke, one vote", and "one snort, one vote." Or if you're running for office from Minnesota, "341 convicted felons, 341 votes."

We see two main scenarios for the economy over the next 6-9 months — a fairly bad one in which the economy grows at a 1½%-2 percent rate through the middle of next year and the unemployment rate rises moderately to 10 percent, and a very bad one in which the economy returns to an outright recession. There is not much probability of a significantly better outcome. The reason is that “short-cycle” factors such as the inventory cycle and the impulse from fiscal policy are likely to continue deteriorating through early 2011, keeping G.D.P. growth very sluggish.

One note about this is that they don’t try to model geopolitical risks, which as best I can tell are all on the downside. Say Israel launches a war with Iran and Iranian countermeasures end up disrupting global oil supplies, then we’re really doomed.

On Neil Cavuto's Fox News show today, Paul not only stood by the position Conway said he took on a $2,000 deductible for Medicare, he actually threw gasoline on the fire by suggesting that the deductible should apply to all future beneficiaries 55 years old or younger.

Late Update: Despite his comments on Cavuto today, Paul is apparently up with his own set of ads claiming "he does not support higher deductibles for Medicare and that his Democratic rival, Jack Conway, is 'deliberately distorting' his views on the issue," according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Count on the Democrats to defend the principles of "one cemetary plot, one vote", "one smoke, one vote", "one slug, one vote", "one toke, one vote", and "one snort, one vote." Or if you're running for office from Minnesota, "341 convicted felons, 341 votes."

Given that Republicans are even more craven servants of the fossil fuel industries...feel free to argue this point instead, if you wish.
~

Posted by: ifthethunderdontgetya | October 6, 2010 7:22 PM
----

I wouldn't worry about all the money being spent on political advertising if I were you. It stimulates the economy. Judging from the miserable job numbers coming out again, it could use the stimulating. You like stimulus don't you?

Besides, how many Republicans have you been snookered into voting for by all these ads? If they can't fool a cretin like you, I think the rest of us are pretty safe.

Several people were posting irate remarks about his commenting pracices, today, as they have been doing almost every day, ever since he wandered out of the Forest, and into this Plumline glade; so I offered them this suggestion:

..................

The resident Forest Creature is in fine form today. Let him rave.

Perhaps; people might just want to copy a stock response from Craig Ferguson's Robot Skeleton Sidekick;

and just respond to every STRF diatribe with a simple;

In Your Pants!!!

Try it. I bet it will vent your frustration, and make you feel better.

Now list all the big names that they purchased and paid 20 million or more per year for.

Start with their Pitching staff. List how much of their annual salary budget is paid to members of their 25 man roster, that they outbid every other team for, or that the other teams could not afford to even bid on.

Only if you are in favor of torturing the rule of law, and becoming what the terrorists want us to become.

Posted by: Liam-still | October 6, 2010 7:30 PM
---

Following the liberal interpretation of law, we may well become what the terrorists want us to become---non-existent. This country has lost the stomach for war, so we should stop engaging in them. They aren't law enforcment operations. We're not ruthless enough to be a tenth as worrisome as our enemies paint us.

Who was that buffoon in an earlier post today who was ranting about how America enjoys destroying brown people? How many brown people were killed in the fire-bombing of Dresden? Tokyo? How many brown people were nuked in Nagasaki and Hiroshima? So many idiots don't understand how lucky they are to be U.S. citizens; they should have been born in a cave somewhere in Afghanistan. Ole Harry Truman knew how to win a war.

We were bogged down in Vietnam for how many years? Forget the wisdom of the endeavor---how long would it have taken to wind things down if we had followed Curtis LeMay's suggestions? Now we're worried about how we treat enemy combatants who are not following ANY of the conventions of war? There are two sides in a war---winners and losers. If you don't plan on winning, just leave the troops at home.

Jeezus. This was a very good day. Can't wait to see some of the footage.

I played from early grade school up until 15 years ago when osteo got into my big toes and I could no longer accelerate into a run. And it occurred to me today how unlikely it was that from 11 years old until the point I quit, I played only one position in every team I was in - shortstop. But I was good and it was the only position I wanted to play.

Please do be explicit, then, and state the reason. For it seems readily apparent to me that the reason it was brought up at NRO by Daniel Foster was to condemn the actions of the firefighters. He said:

"But forget the politics: what moral theory allows these firefighters (admittedly acting under orders) to watch this house burn to the ground when 1) they have already responded to the scene; 2) they have the means to stop it ready at hand; 3) they have a reasonable expectation to be compensated for their trouble?...I’m a conservative with fairly libertarian leanings, but this is a kind of government for which I would not sign up."

And yet, despite the fact that he is expressing precisely the moral position that you hold yourself, you seem to be implying that the issue was "jumped on" by NRO as part of some coordinated messaging designed to promote the opposite of what was said. Again, very bizarre.

It takes a great deal of talent for a politician to combine a dogwhistle to birthers and a veiled insult to Sarah Palin in just a few sentences. But Alaska Senate hopeful Joe Miller (R) managed to do just that.

In a Fox News interview, Miller could barely bring himself to say he thinks Sarah Palin is qualified to be President of the United States. When he finally did, though, all he could muster was the fact that she clears the lowest hurdle, meeting the benchmarks the Constitution requires of U.S. Presidents.

And the hated Yankees stole their best pitcher and their owner from Cleveland. Not sure which team is more hated here, the Yankees or the Miami Heat, but there is not question which player is most hated -- LePrick.

After the election, says Frum, after the GOP has recovered in record time, either it's going to have to move away from its campaign rhetoric or it's going to be unable to govern. "What happens in January," Frum says, "when the GOP majority arrives and the Bush tax cuts expire, the U.S. economy has deflationary shock, we don't have a program for pulling the economy out of inflation, and we don't have permission from party supporters or permission from voters to compromise? You have people arriving in office with highly apocalyptic vision of a president but programs they don't know how to execute on their own. It's a formula for crisis."

@Scott - Yes, this is my moral position on this particular case, but also more broadly of course.

As I said earlier, the soft belly of libertarianism and modern US conservatism is disregard (or insufficient regard) for human suffering. This is precisely why the framing of "compassionate conservativism" was used - to suggest identity with and therefore empathy and caring for those less well positioned. It's also why Bush bought a ranch and why he was choreographed with sleeves rolled up. "I'm one of you regular people. I understand your travails." It's why Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, etc push the "Everyman" pretense.

So, that's an over-arching propaganda trope evident broadly. For perspective, it's comparable to "libs are weak on defense". These are matters of perception based on some combination of history and previously electorally successful mythologies extant in the culture.

As liberals understand they are suceptible to the charge of 'weak on defence', the right understands that it is at risk on notions/values related to 'compassion' or 'caring'. And that's why Beck, Limbaugh and the NRO (three people there, not just one) had to address this fire and it's why the left addressed it too.

As to Foster, one would have to talk to the fellow (he sounds rather interesting to me, I'll start to keep track of him) to get a notion of whether he addressed this merely as a moral matter or as a more strategic move to say - "Look, incidents like this hurt the cause because they underline the way in which we are suceptible". I can easily personally grant him the more benign motive here but we have to acknowledge that, as I said, just try and find any earlier instance where the NRO, Limbaugh and Beck ever brought up a house fire. That's not coincidence. It's directly related to what I just wrote above.

Now, as regards your other criticism - how could I indict an organization like the NRO for partisan propaganda when there are some instances of a political view which might be close to my own? I'm not sure why you'd even ask this. We know what Buckley's goals were in establishing the journal. We know as well why, at this point in time, Buckley's son was asked to leave. There are no liberals/progressives employed. Points of view much outside of a very narrow political range do not appear here, particularly when a Republican administration is in place. Contrast with, for example, Glenn Greenwald's attacks on Obama within the Salon organization - and he's their highest profile contributor. Such non-partisan behavior would never be allowed at the NRO, nor anything close to it.

"But I like a fellow who comes right out and speaks his mind, even if he's so obviously a dork."

Hey Brigade,what is it about you people on the Right that you name call when you are confused and tongue-tied. Your rant is incoherent and ideologically confused, so who's the dork?
Go tell your story walkin.

"And that's why Beck, Limbaugh and the NRO (three people there, not just one) had to address this fire...

But NRO did not "address" it. One staff writer brought it up in a blog post, and 3 others responded to his initial post. That is it. It was not an editorial position of the magazine. And they expressed disagreement with each other about what it meant in any event. Again, portraying this as a part of some coordinated response is just plain bizarre.

"just try and find any earlier instance where the NRO, Limbaugh and Beck ever brought up a house fire."

But it wasn't just a house fire, and it wasn't the nature of it as a simple house fire that was being discussed. It was the interesting moral questions that were raised by the response to the fire that made it both interesting and worth discussing. And moral issues are discussed all the time on NRO. In that there was nothing unique or special about this discussion in the slightest.

"Now, as regards your other criticism - how could I indict an organization like the NRO for partisan propaganda when there are some instances of a political view which might be close to my own?"

No. In this particular instance I questioned why you would accuse an organization for propagandizing in a way that was the precise opposite of what was actually said on the subject. And, in a more general sense, I have in the past criticized you for pretending that NRO advances (propagandizes, in your words) a singular point of view. You do it again even here. You say:

"Points of view much outside of a very narrow political range do not appear here, particularly when a Republican administration is in place."

This is simply absurd, and suggests that you do not actually pay much attention at all to what is actually written at NRO. Yes, NR is a conservative magazine, and so employs conservative writers, just like dozens of other opinion magazines employ writers of a particular political bent. But there is actually quite a wide range of viewpoints expressed on NRO. The subject at hand is a good example, where two diametrically opposed opinions were expressed by 4 different writers there. Yet you bizarrely think this is evidence that NRO is a propaganda organ. Back when it was topical, there was regular and heated debate at NRO on the whole waterboarding/torture issue. Ponnuru and Derbyshire have gone at it more than once over religious issues. I could go on, but put simply, your portrayal of NR is quite absurd to anyone who has paid any attention to what goes on over there.

And, BTW, Chris Buckley was never "asked to leave" NR. He chose to publish his endorsement of Obama elsewhere (insulting NR readers in the process), and followed that up with an offer to relinquish his (temporary, in any event) column on the back page of NR. His offer was accepted.

Finally, FYI, it is National Review (NR), and National Review Online (NRO). Not "the" NR or "the" NRO. Take a look at the masthead

Per capita income in New York City (Manhattan): $90,000
Per capita income in Minneapolis: $44,478

I know these are two different sets of stats but it's not a huge stretch to imagine that the difference in total team salaries might reflect the difference between the average income in the team's home towns. People in Manhattan, on average, make twice as much as people in Minneapolis. It stands to reason that the Yankee payroll would be approximately double that of the Twins.

I won't even go into the cost of living difference between the two cities.

I will defend anyone's right to love, or hate, any baseball team they choose. But let's not go comparing the venerable Yankees to the Chamber of Commerce! ;)

Bernie's response to Scott at 10:15 is so delusionally absurd that I feel obliged to pile on.

I have read every issue of NR since at 1980, as well countless other articles and books it led me to. So I know something about it. Bernie quite obviously knows next to nothing about it, despite his pretenses to in-depth knowledge.

NR has been a contentious place since its beginning, and one in which Buckley deliberately brought together disparate voices of conservatism and libertarianism, in many cases wrestling with personalities who not only had profound disagreements but did not much like each other to join and stay with the enterprise. Yes, it is all within a broadly defined conservative-libetarian sphere, but the idea that there is enforced adherence to any official propoganda line is absolutely preposterous. Dissent has been routine at all times at NR and has become, if anything, more frequent with NRO and the free-wheeling Corner.

"Points of view much outside of a very narrow political range do not appear here, particularly when a Republican administration is in place. Contrast with, for example, Glenn Greenwald's attacks on Obama within the Salon organization - and he's their highest profile contributor. Such non-partisan behavior would never be allowed at the NRO, nor anything close to it."

Bernie must never have seen NR or NRO during the Bush years, for Bush and the GOP routinely and strongly criticized in them. Did they become liberals and endorse Obama? Of course not. Nor did Greenwald or Salon ever attack Obama from the right or come out against him and in favor of th GOP. They are consistently left wing.

"but we have to acknowledge that, as I said, just try and find any earlier instance where the NRO, Limbaugh and Beck ever brought up a house fire. That's not coincidence. It's directly related to what I just wrote above."

On its face, this is an amazing non-sequitur. Because Bernie can't think of these people previously "bringing up" a house fire, they did it here as propoganda? What is the missing premise here? Is there even one that can get from A to C?

More deeply, tensions between libertarianism and Burkean conservatism and how to reconcile them have been one of the principle tensions and topics of discussion and investigation at NR since its beginning. Indeed, it is one of the principle reasons for being of NR. It was one of the principle projects of people like Frank Meyer (who I believe coined the term "fusionism").

The themes of the house fire argument have thus been central to NR from the start, and anyone who has regularly read it is on completely familiar ground in using the house fire to explore them. The fire argument is just a recent example of a decades-long argument at NR. Only in Bernie's mind would this become an instance of "propoganda."

@Scott: " I have in the past criticized you for pretending that NRO advances (propagandizes, in your words) a singular point of view. "

I think the problem might be that NRO doesn't contain more of a mixture of leftish and right-leaning views, but, is instead, mostly right leaning (from crunchy con to neocon). However, NRO doesn't pretend to be Slate magazine and, as it turns out, there is already a Slate out there. Similar objections could be raised about The Nation or Mother Jones--not a lot of thought conservative think pieces in those publications.

BTW, I think the fire was newsworthy from the get-go(and thus, touched on by folks at NRO, Glenn Beck, and Limbaugh) because there was an immediate attempt to cast this 20 year old arrangement as some new manifestation of tea party America, to imply that this fire department represented some form of new-fangled Republican privatization of public utilities (it doesn't), or that it represented some sort of Galtian utilitarianism run amuck (thanks to the Tea Partiers), rather than an officious observation of governmental bureaucratic protocol. If anything, it was government rule-bound literalism run amuck, not private enterprise.

As such, it's not surprising folks want to touch on it. Although I do like the implication that several conservatives expressing an opinion on a news item (on that is already being spun as somehow inherently anti-conservative) represents a propaganda conspiracy. That's clever.

"Still unsolved is what makes the bees fly off into the wild yonder at the point of death. One theory, Dr. Bromenshenk said, is that the viral-fungal combination disrupts memory or navigating skills and the bees simply get lost. Another possibility, he said, is a kind of insect insanity."

Oh, if only Bilgey were here to comment. ; )

Interesting article, though, and good news. Who'd have thought that they do this kind of research by smashing up bees with mortar and pestle or putting them in a coffee grinder.

The fire was newsworthy, in my mind, because for the first time apparently in 20 years the fire department actually let a house burn down when it had every ability to extinguish the fire. From what I have been led to believe, other fires had occurred in the past in structures that had not paid their "protection fee" and the fire department nevertheless did its duty and put out the fire. The newsworthiness therefore relates to the shifting attitudes from public duty and shared responsibility to "eff the freeloaders."

Good recap of the history/reality of NR. I've been a reader since the mid '80s.

Kevin:

"I think the problem might be that NRO doesn't contain more of a mixture of leftish and right-leaning views..."

I think the "problem" lies elsewhere. Afterall, this blog doesn't contain any mixture of leftish and right-leaning views, yet Bernie would not accuse Greg of being a propagandist. Indeed, I once questioned him on precisely this point, challenging him to distinguish between what Greg does and what writers at NR do such that they are propagandists but Greg is not. Like today, he basically shut down the conversation at that point and refused to address the question, acting as if the asnwer was self-evident and hence not worth his time.

@ScottC3: "Suit yourself. I guess you will just believe whatever you want to believe, regardless of the actual evidence"

While not addressing Bernie (or anyone specifically), I would note that folks that believe in conspiracies are remarkably immune to contradictory evidence, no matter how substantial. They are also immune to logical deconstruction of the "conspiracy".

I put conspiracy in quotes for a reason: often, it's not a proper conspiracy, but representative of a deep and unique insight into a group of people or organizations that, to the person who has said insight, is uniquely profound to them--this also helps explain why they are largely immune to contradictory evidence or contrary logic. Of course you can't see the conspiracy or the truth of the profound insight: many, many people cannot. Or you might be part of the conspiracy of people resisting that the truth be revealed! Then your commentary on why the conspiracy theory (or profound insight) is invalid is obviously suspect (or intentionally deceptive).

BTW, another thing you'll often see with indisputable conspiracy theories is the moving bar. Truthers and birthers would both be familiar with this strategy. If Obama releases the "long form" birth certificate, it will be a fake. Turns out nobody was arguing that burning jet fuel "melted" steel--just drop that. The conspiracy is real, even if everything cited to prove the conspiracy must change--or the bars for disproving the conspiracy (something you already know to be impossible) must be extremely mobile.

South Carolina's more than 236,000 unemployed workers could have to take a drug test in order to receive jobless benefits, according to a proposal by Republican gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley on Tuesday. [...]

Though employees fired for using drugs, alcohol or missing work can be disqualified from jobless benefits, Haley said testing the unemployed was one of several steps in ensuring the newly restructured Department of Employment and Workforce -- now a cabinet agency -- only pays benefits to those who have earned them.

"We will make sure, above all, that there will be no ... benefits if they do not pass a drug test," Haley said.

The idea is so absurd, it's hard to know where to start. Is it legal to force the unemployed to take a government-mandated drug test in order to qualify for benefits to which they're entitled? Who would pay for the administering of these hundreds of thousands of drug tests in South Carolina? Is this Haley's idea of "limited government"?

@Kevin - Of course, the Nation or MJ would be more appropriate comparisons re narrow political views and ideological staffers.

"As such, it's not surprising folks want to touch on it. Although I do like the implication that several conservatives expressing an opinion on a news item (on that is already being spun as somehow inherently anti-conservative) represents a propaganda conspiracy. That's clever."

The term "propaganda" isn't an easy one, if one is to be careful. But that's a fairly long discussion. As I've noted before, pre WW2, the PR industry used this term as a descriptor of their profession (see Edward Bernays) but after Goebbels (who had Bernays' book in his library) the term became rather less appealing. And then came Orwell. Like I said, long and not simple discussion and I won't bother here in a venue like this one.

The other term you use, "conspiracy" is likewise loaded. You misinterpret my argument and so see it as an instance of such a claim.

What I'm arguing is not that, for example, Limbaugh, Beck and NRO editors quickly twittered each other and said "Yikes, let's get on this." My argument is that there are structural realities that make it highly predictable (near to a certainty) that this news story would be addressed by central media figures working to forward their preferred interpretations of the world.

Call it whatever you like. All I know is that you continually make the same assertions, and when I challenge those assertions either with pointed questions or evidence that contradicts them, your "interest" in responding inevitably wanes. Seems to me that you think that "interesting" discussions are only those in which Bernie's premises are taken to be true and left unchallenged.

Again...how is what Greg does here any different than what NR writers do at NRO? I suspect that you find this question "uninteresting" simply because you do not have a coherent answer to it. But you can and will assert whatever you want. Others can decide for themselves who exactly it is that is playing games here.

I agree with your note about conspiracy and like theories and offer as a good example the recent Friedman/Lithwick column touted by Greg about the Roberts Court as a conservative conspiracy. I deconstructed it at length on what was probably a dead thread or too late for people to see, but it made such remarkable arguments as the argument that the Roberts court takes big, important, high-profile cases on which it makes liberal rulings to distract from the lesser known conservative rulings it makes. Rather head spinning nonsense.

It isn't just conspiracy theory that works this way, though. I would argue that it is more generally theories that aren't really theories at all, since a theory is supposed to be falsifiable or testable. Bernie just has a dogmatic belief that conservative media monolithically propaganize. Whatever "evidence" there might be can only confirm his belief.

So, in this instance, when an NRO blogger comments in real time that the house fire might represent a libertarianism he does not accept, and a policy debate ensues, this is just more evidence of propaganda. When one begins with the assumption that all NRO does is official progaganda, then all that they publish can be made to fit that assumption.

Now, it would appear that Bernie is retreating a bit, to a position that sounds as though all viewpoint, opinion journalism is "propaganda," but if that is the case then the whole discussion is pointless.

"In fact, I find this one of the most interesting questions one might pose. I am just uninterested in discussing it in the style of never-give-an-inch discourse you favor."

Personally I would find that more believable if you hadn't been happy to engage in conversation with me right up until I actually posed that question. Again, I leave it to others to decide who exactly is playing games here.

@pragmatic: "The idea is so absurd, it's hard to know where to start. Is it legal to force the unemployed to take a government-mandated drug test in order to qualify for benefits to which they're entitled?"

Yes. Although, it probably shouldn't be. I would think that would come under the nanny state. What's next? Are we going to verify their cholesterol level to make sure they are eating more healthily?

"Who would pay for the administering of these hundreds of thousands of drug tests in South Carolina?"

They've always been about limited government the way Democrats talk about tax cuts. Either they work as hard as they ever had, but it turns out they had to raise your taxes (like Bill Clinton), or they are all temporary tax credits, tax breaks, or highly caveated tax "cuts" that are only in force for 7th sons of 7th sons who cash their paychecks under a full moon at midnight.

That being said, Nikki Haley is orders of magnitude better than her Republican competition in SC. Bad ideas about drug testing the unemployed (is that even real, or is that an extrapolation?) aside, I'm hoping she has a long future in GOP politics.

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